Two weeks ago I had an opportunity to sit down face to face with Jeff Wadlow, the writer and director of the upcoming action comedy Kick-Ass 2, and grill him on his third feature length film and sequel to one of my favorite films of 2010. Below we discuss taking over for Matthew Vaughn, not giving people an exact replica of the first film, working with the great Jim Carrey and his thoughts on Kick-Ass 3.
Alex DiGiovanna: Firstly, congrats, you’ve done what few have done on a studio level, you’ve scripted an awesome film on spec and then got to direct it. How does it feel? What was the point when you decided to actually write the script on spec?
Jeff Wadlow: So I had a pitch for another movie that I pitched to Matthew Vaughn and he liked it and he was going to do X-Men so I just went ahead and wrote it and sent it to him and he loved the script. He called me up and he said it’s just like the pitch and I said yeah, he said you do what you say you’re going to do, do you want to do Kick-Ass 2 and I was like yeah. So we started to talk about the story and his concerns, where I thought it should go and how I thought the comic should be adapted and then he got busy again and I didn’t hear from him for a little while so I just wrote it and I sent it to him and he read it and he said it’s great, let’s make it, let’s do it
AD: Who was your favorite character in the film?
JW: In Kick-Ass 2? Oh man, I love them all, it’s so hard to say, I have such genuine affection for all the characters. You saw the film last night?
AD: Yeah
JW: It’s really three different stories that come crashing together at the end. I really just love the journeys that all three of them go on and I think Aaron, Chris and Chloe did such a fantastic job. It was such a pleasure writing the script knowing they were going to play the part. So often as filmmakers we write scripts with sort of ideas of who could play them or sort of archetypes but rarely do you know exactly who the person is going to be and to be able to see them and think about them while I was writing it, it made writing much easier and then to see them take those stories and bring them to life and add so much to them was just one of the most rewarding experiences of my career thus far.
AD: If you had a choice to be a vigilante or villain in this universe what would your hero or villain name be?
JW: Ahh I used so many of my good names in the script, like The Tumor and Genghis Carnage. I would probably be a hero and I would probably not last very long. If I have learned anything from the Kick-Ass universe it’s that if you try to do this you’re going to get your ass kicked.
AD: Diving into the actual film now, when you were penning the story and as you were directing, what was the most important aspect for you when it came to putting this film together and delivering something the fans of the original and the comics would enjoy?
JW: The way I approached the adaptation was to handle it sort of in tiers because for people who know the comic book well and know the first movie well and the first series of the comic, well there are some inconsistencies like he doesn’t end up with Katie in the comic but he does in the movie, Dave, in the comic Mindy’s mom is alive in the movies she’s not, the jetpack isn’t in the movie. You know what I mean? So there are all these things that even though the movie feels like a fairly faithful adaptation there are these changes and so the way I approached it, so that I didn’t get turned around, I adapted the second series of the comic first. I had the first four issues that were done, I had the scripts and the outlines for the last three to hit the total number of seven and had just adapted that into screenplay form, then I re-watched the first movie like three times, back to back, then I sat down and rewrote the script as a sequel to the movie. Then I did a whole other pass on it where I sort of dealt with the fact that Chloe’s four years older and I thought about questions that I had about the characters that weren’t addressed and I think by approaching it that way, with these three tiers, I was able to not lose my mind.
AD: The film takes an opposite approach to the first one, where the original focuses on the superhero aspect and what you see on the outside, this one takes an inner approach and a very grounded one at that. The film is about discovery, heart break and loss, sounds like I’m describing Game of Thrones, did you find the balancing act between those core emotional aspects and the fun action oriented ones difficult?
JW: Not really because Kick-Ass 2 is the kind of movie I want to make. In many ways it’s the only kind of movie I can make in that it’s fun, it’s big, there’s action moments, its exciting but at the same time you’re telling stories about people who have real feelings and trying to ask real questions that we all ask that makes them relatable and accessible to the audience, so that balancing act represents the kind of movie that I want to make.
AD: Can you talk a bit about Jim Carry’s presence on set? He’s one of my all-time favorite actors and while his role was small it is probably one of the more memorable roles in the film. Did you have to do much directing with him or did he come in ready to roll and knew exactly what he was going to deliver?
JW: Well yeah, he just explodes onto the screen doesn’t he? He epitomizes the idea of the superhero movement spreading, this notion that Dave started something that other people are now taking to crazy extremes and no one can do that better obviously than Jim. I talked to him a lot before the shoot, I had some ideas about the character and he had some specific ideas that weren’t necessarily in sync, but once we talked we kind of got on the same page and he really got it and ran with it and embraced it and then he just started bringing in so much and so many ideas and just kept piling them up. He would just come to set with this embarrassment of riches, so many ideas and thoughts about the scene and the dialogue and characters and I felt of sort as my job, as the director, when you say direct him, being a director changes depending on the actor you’re working with, sometimes you have actors that are completely lost and you have to guide them through a scene, that’s not the case with Jim, but basically my job as the director with Jim was to kind of let him dump all of that stuff out and start weeding through it with him and finding, all of it was great, but where are the gems, where are the true iconic moments and giving him room to play and helping him identify them and then at the end of the day, thinking as a filmmaker, ok it’s great that Jim is doing all of this but do I have what I need to go into the editing room and tell the story that needs to be told and so trying to find the intersection between what he was doing, which was this explosive character and the need to service the story.
AD: And did he do a lot of improvisational stuff on the set or did he stick mostly to the script?
JW: There were sort of three levels. A lot of the stuff was scripted, and he did a great job of making those moments come to life. Then there were moments where he would have ideas about dialogue and moments we would talk about them the day before when he was putting on his makeup and then there was other stuff that just came out of his mouth while we were shooting. And again, my job was to get all of that stuff on film, no matter what it was, and then sort of figuring it out in post and he was just such a rock star because he would give me so much great material.
AD: Oh, by the way, what happened to Eisenhower?
JW: Eisenhower, I actually shot Eisenhower, this is a spoiler obviously for whoever reads this, I shot a scene where Eisenhower shows up in the evil layer and gets a little payback and it didn’t make it into the cut because you want the third act to start to get really sort of serious and a little bit darker and I think it was too much of a big cheer moment. I don’t know, maybe it’ll be on the DVD, it’s a fun moment
AD: A deleted scene.
JW: Yeah.
AD: One of the things I really loved about the film was the soundtrack and score. The mix of EDM music, hip hop and other traditional elements as well, it made the movie a lot more fun to listen to rather than just watch, was that style something you requested or did it all originate from Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson?
JW: Well the score, we were definitely building upon what Henry did in the first film, Matt wrote the new music for this movie, so we then had to blow it out. And the same way this movie is about the super hero movement spreading, the score had to get more encompassing too. The Motherfucker theme had to be written, we had to come up with some emotional cues for Mindy and then as far as the different source tracks, we had these two fantastic music supervisors Will and Ian who worked with me just to find all these different tracks. I’m a big believer in having music be as varied and as interesting as possible because I think that’s the way we listen to music now. Nobody just listens to EDM, nobody just listens to rock, you know I think we’re exposed to all these musical genres and I think it’s fun to bring that to film.
AD: How much have you actually begun to think about Kick-Ass 3 and have you spoken with the cast about it? In the press conference you mentioned the ending, the after credit sequence, are you going to write that on spec? Also, do you thinks it something you’d be interested in?
SPOILER JW: It’s a weird thing, that might be the only time I ever actually even thought of Kick-Ass 3 and it was purely as a fan. You gotta remember, I saw Kick-Ass when I was a fan. I had nothing to do with making that movie I just went and saw it in a theater just like you and loved it and so when Mark was initially going to kill off Chris in Kick-Ass 2 I begged him not to do it purely as just a fan because I want to see Chris’ further, adventures is the wrong word, mishaps but then as a filmmaker, to be candid, I haven’t really thought about it at all because I’ve been so focused on this film and anytime someone would bring up Kick-Ass 3 while we were making this film I would just put it out of my mind because we all know there are sequels that are just set ups for a third film and I said, I don’t want to make that movie, I want to make a movie with a beginning, middle and end and then at the end of the movie you feel like “wow” these characters went on this insane journey and I feel like I went on the journey with them and I don’t think you get that if it’s too open ended.
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